PhonePe gets Rs 452 crore from Flipkart Payments

Flipkart Payments, a Singapore-based subsidiary of the e-commerce giant has infused Rs 451.66 crore into its payments company PhonePe, according to documents sourced from Registrar of Companies (RoC) through Paper.vc. PhonePe allocated over 21.4 lakh shares to Flipkart Payments for the fresh round of capital infusion. The resolution was approved last month, the documents showed. PhonePe is expected to use these funds to take on its rivals in the payments sphere- SoftBank backed Paytm and Google’s Tez.

This follows Flipkart’s earlier investment of Rs 518 crore in PhonePe in March this year. The investment is part of the $500 million commitment Flipkart made to invest in PhonePe last year, in addition to the $75 million funds infusion it made since acquiring PhonePe in 2015.

Last month, PhonePe claimed that it was the largest UPI-based payments player in the country with a 40% share of the market. According to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has reported 235.6 million transactions in July. While PhonePe had said that it clocked over 100 million monthly transactions in July, Paytm reportedly registered 73 million transactions in the month.

PhonePe’s expansion drive

Since the start of this year, PhonePe began offering a variety of services including tie-ups with Goibibo, RedBus, Mumbai Metro and Ola Cabs whose services would be available directly through PhonePe’s mobile application. PhonePe has also been building its offline payments business to expand its customer base. To this effect, the company acquired Zopper Retail, a hyperlocal point-of-sale platform for small and medium businesses. PhonePe also developed its own PoS (Point of Sale) device based on Bluetooth technology to process and boost its offline transactions. It has also reportedly tied up with several retail chains including Café Coffee Day, Apollo Pharmacy, Barista, Spencer’s, KFC, FoodWorld, Pai International and Goli Vada Pav.